American History Told by Contemporaries/Volume 2/Chapter 34
CHAPTER XXXIV — THE END OF THE WAR, 1780- 1781
211. A Review of the War (1780-1781)
Madison was at this time a young Virginian, recently graduated from Princeton College; later he became member of Congress, secretary of state, and president. — Bibliography of Madison: Rives, James Madison; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VII, 315; Foster, Presidential Administrations, 12-15. — Bibliography of the southern campaigns: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 519-555; G. W. Greene, Nathanael Greene ; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 140.
THE insuperable difficulties which opposed a general conquest of America seemed as early as the year 1779 to have been felt by the enemy, and to have led them into the scheme of directing their operations and views against the Southern States only. Clinton accordingly removed with the principal part of his force from New York to South Carolina, and laid siege to Charleston, which, after an honorable resistance, was compelled to surrender to a superiority of force. Our loss in men, besides the inhabitants of the town, was not less than two thousand. Clinton returned to New York. Cornwallis was left with about five thousand troops to pursue his conquests. General Gates was appointed to the command of the Southern department, in place of Lincoln, who commanded in Charleston at the time of its capitulation. He met Cornwallis on the 16th of August, 1780, near Camden, in the upper part of South Carolina and on the border of North Carolina. A general action ensued, in which the American troops were defeated with considerable loss, though not without making the enemy pay a good price for their victory. Cornwallis continued his progress into North Carolina, but afterwards retreated to Camden. The defeat of Gates was followed by so general a clamor against him, that it was judged expedient to recall him. Greene was sent to succeed in the command. About the time of his arrival at the army, Cornwallis, having been reinforced from New York, resumed his enterprise into North Carolina. A detachment of his best troops was totally defeated by Morgan with an inferior number, and consisting of a major part of militia detached from Greene's army. Five hundred were made prisoners, between two and three hundred killed and wounded, and about the like number escaped. This disaster, instead of checking the ardor of Cornwallis, afforded a new incentive to a rapid advance, in the hope of recovering his prisoners. The vigilance and activity, however, of Morgan, secured them. Cornwallis continued his pursuit as far as the Dan river, which divides North Carolina from Virginia. Greene, whose inferior force obliged him to recede this far before the enemy, received such succors of militia on his entering Virginia that the chase was reversed. Cornwallis, in his turn, retreated precipitately. Greene overtook him on his way to Wilmington, and attacked him. Although the ground was lost on our side, the British army was so much weakened by the loss of five or six hundred of their best troops, that their retreat towards Wilmington suffered little interruption. Greene pursued as long as any chance of reaching his prey remained, and then, leaving Cornwallis on his left, took an oblique direction towards Camden, which, with all the other posts in South Carolina except Charleston and Ninety-Six, have, in consequence, fallen again into our possession. His army lay before the latter when we last heard from him. It contained seven or eight hundred men and large quantities of stores. It is nearly two hundred miles from Charleston, and, without some untoward accident, cannot fail of being taken. Greene has detachments all over South Carolina, some of them within a little distance of Charleston ; and the resentments of the people against their late insolent masters ensure him all the aids they can give in re-establishing the American Government there. Great progress is also making in the redemption of Georgia.
As soon as Cornwallis had refreshed his troops at Wilmington, abandoning his Southern conquests to their fate, he pushed forward into Virginia. The parricide Arnold had a detachment at Portsmouth when he lay on the Dan ; Philips had reinforced him so powerfully from New York, that the junction of the two armies at Petersburg could not be prevented. The whole force amounted to about six thousand men. The force under the Marquis De La Fayette, who commanded in Virginia, being greatly inferior, did not oppose them, but retreated into Orange and Culpeper in order to meet General Wayne, who was on his way from Pennsylvania to join him. Cornwallis advanced northward as far as Chesterfield, in the county of Caroline, having parties at the same time at Page's warehouse and other places in its vicinity. A party of horse, commanded by Tarleton, was sent with all the secrecy and celerity possible to surprise and take the General Assembly and Executive who had retreated from Richmond to Charlottesville. The vigilance of a young gentleman who discovered the design and rode express to Charlottesville prevented a complete surprise. As it was, several Delegates were caught, and the rest were within an hour of sharing the same fate. Among the captives was Colonel Lyon of Hanover. Mr. Kinlock, a member of Congress from South Carolina, was also caught at Mr. John Walker's, whose daughter he had married some time before. Governor Jefferson had a very narrow escape. The members of the Government rendezvoused at Stanton, where they soon made a House. Mr. Jeffer son s year having expired, he declined a re-election, and General Nelson has taken his place. Tarleton s party retreated with as much celerity as it had advanced. On the junction of Wayne with the Marquis and the arrival of militia, the latter faced about and advanced rapidly on Cornwallis, who retreated to Richmond, and thence precipitately to Williamsburg, where he lay on the 27th ultimo. The Marquis pursued, and was at the same time within twenty miles of that place. One of his advanced parties had had a successful skirmish within six miles of Williamsburg. Bellini has, I understand, abided patiently in the college the dangers and inconveniences of such a situation. I do not hear that the conse quences have condemned the experiment. Such is the present state of the war in the Southern Department. In the Northern, the operations have been for a considerable time in a manner suspended. At present, a vigorous siege of New York by General Washington's army, aided by five or six thousand French troops under Count De Rochambeau, is in contemplation, and will soon commence. As the English have the command of the water, the result of such an enterprise must be very uncertain. It is supposed, however, that it will certainly oblige the enemy to withdraw their force from the Southern States, which may be a more convenient mode of relieving them than by marching the troops from New York at this season of the year to the southward. On the whole, the probable conclusion of this campaign is, at this juncture, very flattering, the enemy being on the defensive in every quarter. . . .
The great advantage the enemy have over us lies in the superiority of their navy, which enables them continually to shift the war into defenceless places, and to weary out our troops by long marches. The squadron sent by our ally to our support did not arrive till a reinforcement on the part of the enemy had counteracted their views. They have been almost constantly blocked up at Rhode Island by the British fleet. The effects of a hurricane in the last spring on the latter gave a temporary advantage to the former, but circumstances delayed the improvement of it till the critical season was past. Mr. Destouches, who commanded the French fleet, nevertheless hazarded an expedition into Chesapeake bay. The object of it was to co-operate with the Marquis de la Fayette in an attack against Arnold, who lay at Portsmouth with about fifteen hundred British troops. Had he got into the bay, and taken a favorable station, the event would certainly have been adequate to our hopes. Unfortunately, the British fleet, which followed the French immediately from Rhode Island, reached the capes of Virginia first. On the arrival of the latter, a regular and fair combat took place. It lasted for several hours, and ended rather in favor of our allies. As the enemy, however, were nearest the capes, and one of the French ships had lost her rudder, and was otherwise much damaged, the commander thought it best to relinquish his object, and return to his former station. The damage sustained by the enemy, according to their own representation, exceeded that of the French ; and as their number of ships and weight of metal were both superior, it does great honor to the gallantry and good conduct of Mr. Destouches. Congress, and indeed the public at large, were so sensible of this, that their particular thanks were given him on the occasion.
James Madison, Letters and Other Writings (Philadelphia, 1865), I, 44-49 passim.
212. Affairs in the South (1780-1781)
BY GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE
After the defeat of Gates at Camden in 1780, Greene, a Rhode Island man, was put in command. This letter, written to President Reed, illustrates the difficulties of regular campaigns in the south, and also brings out the frightful border warfare. — Bibliography of Greene: G. W. Greene, Nathanael Greene. — Bibliography of southern affairs as in No. 211 above.
Camp on the Pedee, January 9th, 1781. . . .
I INTENDED to have written you before, but I have been so employed since I left Philadelphia, that I have been obliged to deny myself the pleasure of writing to my friends, to attend to the more immediate duties of my department. On my journey I visited the Maryland and Virginia Assemblies, and laid before them the state of this army, and urged the necessity of an immediate support. They both promised to do everything in their power, but such was their poverty, even in their Capitals, that they could not furnish forage for my horses. I have also written to the States of Delaware and North Carolina, neither of which have taken any measures yet for giving effectual aid to this army. I left General Gist in Maryland, and Baron Steuben in Virginia, to forward the recruits and supplies. Measures are taking in Virginia which promise us some aid, though very trifling to what they ought to give, and what our state requires. All the way through the country, as I passed, I found the people engaged in matters of interest and in pursuit of pleasure, almost regardless of their danger. Public credit totally lost, and every man excusing himself from giving the least aid to Government, from an apprehension that they would get no return for any advances. This afforded but a dull prospect, nor has it mended since my arrival.
I overtook the army at Charlotte, to which place General Gates had advanced. The appearance of the troops was wretched beyond description, and their distress, on account of provisions, was little less than their suffering for want of clothing and other necessaries. General Gates had lost the confidence of the officers, and the troops all their discipline, and so addicted to plundering, that they were a terror to the inhabitants. The General and I met upon very good terms, and parted so. The old gentleman was in great distress, having but just heard of the death of his son before my arrival.
The battle of Camden is spoken of very differently here to what it is to the Northward, and as for a regular retreat, there was none ; every man got off the ground in the best manner he could. This is the account Colonel Williams gives, who was one of the last on the field. Indeed, the whole business was a short fight and then a perfect flight, and the greatest loss happened after the troops broke, and attempted to make their escape. From all I can learn, if General Gates had stopped at Charlotte, little more disgrace would have fallen to his share than is common to the unfortunate. Generals Gates and Smallwood were not upon good terms ; the former suspected the latter of having an intention to supplant him. Some think General Gates's suspicions were groundless, and had no other foundation but the General's own imagination. Others are of opinion that they were well founded, and that my appointment was a great disappointment as well as mortification to Smallwood. How the matter was I know not. The General (Smallwood) is gone to the Northward, having declared, for reasons, that he could not think of submitting to the command of Baron Steuben, and that if justice was done him and the State, his commission would be dated at least two years earlier than his appointment. I expostulated with him upon the impossibility of the thing, let his private merit be ever so great, but it was all to no purpose. He was fixed in the principle, and determined upon the measure. He has many enemies in the Maryland line, but upon the whole I think him a sensible man and a good officer.
The wants of this army are so numerous and various, that the shortest way of telling you is to inform you that we have nothing, as General Du Portail can inform you from his own observation. The great departments of the army had nobody at the head of them, fit to provide in a country like this for a sergeant's party. I have got Colonel Carrington to accept of the Quartermaster-General's department, and am in hopes of getting a good man at the head of the Commissaries, without which I foresee we must starve. I am endeavouring to bring everything into order, and perfect our arrangements as much as possible, but it is all an up-hill business.
The loss of our army in Charleston, and the defeat of General Gates has been the cause of keeping such vast shoals of militia on foot, who, like the locusts of Egypt, have eaten up everything, and the expense has been so enormous, that it has ruined the currency of the State. It is my opinion there is no one thing upon the Continent that wants regulating so much, as the right which the States exercise of keeping what militia on foot they please at the Continental expense. I am persuaded North Carolina has militia enough to swallow up all the revenues of America, especially under their imperfect arrangements, where every man draws and wastes as much as he pleases. The country is so extensive and the powers of Government so weak, that everybody does as he pleases. The inhabitants are much divided in their political sentiments, and the Whigs and Tories pursue each other with little less than savage fury. The back-country people are bold and daring in their make, but the people upon the sea-shore are sickly and but indifferent militia. The ruin of the State is inevitable if there are such large bodies of militia kept on foot. No army can subsist in the country long if the ravages continue. Indeed, unless this army is better supported than I see any prospect of, the Country is lost beyond redemption, for it is impossible for the people to struggle much longer under their present difficulties. There appears a foolish pride in the representation of things from this quarter ; the strength and resources of the Country are far overrated, and those who are engaged in this business, to indulge their pride, will sacrifice their Country. The inhabitants are beginning to move off in great bodies, and unless a firmer barrier can be formed, this quarter will be all depopulated. We are living upon chanty, and subsist by daily collections. Indian meal and beef is our common diet, and not a drop of spirits have we had with us since I came to the army. An army naked and subsisted in this manner, and not more than one-third equal to the enemy in numbers, will make but a poor fight, especially as one has been accustomed to victory and the other to flight. It is difficult to give spirits to troops that have nothing to animate them.
I have been obliged to take an entire new position with the army. General Morgan is upon Broad River with a little flying army, and Colonel Washington since his arrival there has defeated a party of Tories, the particulars of which I beg leave to refer you to the President of Congress for. This Camp I mean as a Camp of repose, for the purpose of repairing our wagons, recruiting our horses, and disciplining the troops.
Colonel Lee has just arrived, and his corps is in good order, and I am told Colonel Greene from Virginia is at hand.
General Lesly with his detachment has arrived at Camden, and we have reports that another is coming.
William B. Reed, Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed (Philadelphia, 1847), II,344-346.
213. Exploits of De Grasse in the West Indies (1781)
ANONYMOUS
(Anonymous Translation)
This account, written by an officer who made the cruise described, relates to the one period in the war between France and England when the English lost control of the West Indian waters. The capture of Cornwallis (No. 214) was thus made possible. — Bibliography: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 499-502; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 140.
THE thirteen United States of North America had declared themselves sovereign and independent in 1776. So far were they from being so in 1781, that those in the south were on the point of being compelled to acknowledge their former master, which would have ren dered the liberty of the others very uncertain. Nevertheless, England, at the close of 1782, declared them all free.
The relation of these successes forms part of the campaign of the Count de Grasse. In this view it is offered entire to the public, as the check which the arms of France sustained on the 12th of April, 1782, did not embolden England to continue her non-recognition of the sovereignty of the United States; the advantages obtained in 1781, must, therefore, have established it beyond peradventure.
The events of 1780, and of the first months of 1781, had not even prepared those of the rest of that year and of the early months of the next. In 1780, the fleet of the two powers had fought no less than three times, without obtaining any decisive advantage. The empire of the West India waters remained unsettled, and no enterprise was undertaken on either side before wintering. . . .
'Such was the situation of the belligerent parties in America, when the Count de Grasse was appointed to command the king s naval forces in that part of the world. . . . the Count de Grasse, who had reached Paris, February 1st, left the 18th, and arrived at Brest on the 26th.
There a considerable squadron was preparing, which was to escort a convoy of one hundred and fifty sail, with a reinforcement of troops . . . and the fleet and convoy set sail, March 22d, with a favorable wind, in spite of the equinox.
We doubled the cape on the 27th; and then, to keep the convoy always together, and to prevent the sailing of the slow craft from retard ing that of the rest, the admiral had them towed by his ships, taking one himself.
Thanks to this precaution, in thirty-six days the fleet and the whole convoy (an unheard of thing till then for so many vessels), came at day-break, on the 28th of April, in sight of the land of Martinique.
. . . at 11, an English frigate was perceived making signals, and at 2 o'clock twenty-two hostile sails were signalled towards Diamond Rock. . . . 17 vessels of the line and five frigates had, for the last fifty days, blockaded the roadstead of Fort Royal and the four French vessels anchored there ; the latter had orders, during the course of the night, to hoist sail the next morning and attack the head or rear of the English squadron, as soon as they saw the French fleet.
On the 29th, in the morning, the fleet, covering the convoy, steered for Fort Royal ; at 8 o'clock the English squadron was signalled, and at noon the French fleet was on the beam of the English flagship. The English began a very distant fire, to which the French paid no attention till the English bullets went far beyond them. The convoy had lain to the windward of Diamond Rock, and when the action began it continued its route to its destination, without the loss of a single vessel from its leaving Brest.
The English fleet, while fighting, crowded sail ; the admiral sent orders by the frigates for each French vessel to engage the English vessel opposite, and for the surplus with the four vessels from the road stead of Fort Royal, as a light squadron to turn the English line and get it between two fires. This order was not executed. Of the English fleet only three vessels of the rear guard were ever engaged, because the French van which served as rear guard, instead of bearing down, according to all the signals, kept the wind constantly with light sails, while, on the contrary, the rear guard became van, bore down on the enemy and engaged them vigorously. Thus the English fleet could always bear away in order ; and at six o'clock there were only thirteen out of the twenty-four French vessels in pursuit of the seventeen English ; these covered the retreat of the Russell, 74, which then ran before the wind to St. Eustatius, where it arrived with seven feet of water in the hold, and much cut up ; the Centaur, the Torbay, the Intrépide, were not less so. . . .
The naval and military commanders lost no time in their operations ; it seems that they wished to undertake nothing the execution of which was not certain, before the 1st of July, since they decided to attack the isle of Tobago, the only one that interrupted the communication of the French Windward Isles with the Spanish mainland. This communica tion, established from isle to isle, secured fresh provisions, not abundant on the islands, and deprived the hostile cruisers of all refuge in those ports. . . .
The enemy were still at St. Christopher's ; but on the 22d news came that they had sailed and were manœuvring to windward. The French fleet again set sail on the 25th, to go and cover the attack on Tobago. The French had landed there on the 24th, and the artillery of the vessels had soon silenced the batteries which defended the anchorage ; the fleet came in sight of the island on the 30th ; it perceived six hostile vessels with a convoy, destined, doubtless, to carry in supplies ; but they renounced their project by a prompt flight. On the 31st the fleet landed the Marquis de Bouille, with a corps of troops, at Courland Bay, and on the 1st of June, the Marquis du Chilleau, with other troops, at Man of War's Bay. . . .
On arriving at the cape, the admiral found the frigate Concorde, from North America. The news spread that the dispatches of the naval and military commanders, and those of the envoy of France, at Philadelphia, joined in assuring him that, without a prompt relief of vessels, men, money and ammunition, Virginia would fall again under the English yoke ; and that the French army had pay only to the 20th of August. These fears and these wants were set forth without fixed projects to remedy them ; they left the admiral a choice only between an attack on New York by sea and by land, or to transfer the theatre of war to Virginia by a sudden occupation of Chesapeake Bay with sufficient naval forces. For either plan, nothing less was asked than a reinforcement of 6000 men, 1,200,000 livres in specie, munitions in proportion, and all in the course of August ; without all this relief, the most disastrous events were menaced. The admiral s reply was expected by the same frigate. . . .
On the 30th of August Cape Henry was discovered N. W. 14 W. Chesapeake Bay was reconnoitred, and the fleet anchored behind Cape Henry on the 31st. Thus, on the day named, Lord Cornwallis could no longer hope to return to New York, or derive any aid from there.
Journal of an Officer in the Naval Army in America, in 1781 and 1782 (Amsterdam, 1783) ; reprinted in The Operations of the French Fleet under the Count De Grasse in 1781-2 (Bradford Club Series, No. 3, New York, 1864), 137-153 passim.
214. The Capitulation of Yorktown (1781)
BY LIEUTENANT-GENERAL CHARLES, MARQUIS CORNWALLIS
Out of the many journals and letters by participants in the Virginia campaign, this letter, addressed to Sir Henry Clinton, has been chosen, as the official statement of the defeated general. — Bibliography of Cornwallis : Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 474. — Bibliography of the campaign : Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 547-551; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 140.
Yorktown, Virginia, Oct. 20, 1781. . . .
I HAVE the mortification to inform your Excellency that I have been forced to give up the posts of York and Gloucester, and to surrender die troops under my command, by capitulation, on the 19th instant, as prisoners of war to the combined forces of America and France. I never saw this post in a very favourable light, but when I found I was to be attacked in it in so unprepared a state, by so powerful an army and artillery, nothing but the hopes of relief would have induced me to attempt its defence, for I would either have endeavoured to escape to New York by rapid marches from the Gloucester side, immediately on the arrival of General Washington's troops at Williamsburg, or I would, notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, have attacked them in the open field, where it might have been just possible that fortune would have favoured the gallantry of the handful of troops under my command, but being assured by your Excellency's letters that every possible means would be tried by the navy and army to relieve us, I could not think myself at liberty to venture upon either of those desperate attempts ; therefore, after remaining for two days in a strong position in front of this place in hopes of being attacked, upon observing that the enemy were taking measures which could not fail of turning my left flank in a short time, and receiving on the second evening your letter of the 24th of September, informing me that the relief would sail about the 5th of October, I withdrew within the works on the night of the 29th of September, hoping by the labour and firmness of the soldiers to protract the defence until you could arrive. Everything was to be expected from the spirit of the troops, but every disadvantage attended their labour, as the works were to be continued under the enemy's fire, and our stock of intrenching tools, which did not much exceed 400 when we began to work in the latter end of August, was now much diminished.
The enemy broke ground on the night of the 30th, and constructed on that night, and the two following days and nights, two redoubts, which, with some works that had belonged to our outward position, occupied a gorge between two creeks or ravines, which come from the river on each side of the town. On the night of the 6th of October they made their first parallel, extending from its right on the river, to a deep ravine on the left, nearly opposite to the centre of this place, and embracing our whole left at a distance of 600 yards. Having perfected this parallel, their batteries opened on the evening of the 9th against our left, and other batteries fired at the same time against a redoubt advanced over the creek upon our right, and defended by about 120 men of the 23rd Regiment and marines, who maintained that post with uncommon gallantry. The fire continued incessant from heavy cannon, and from mortars and howitzers throwing shells from 8 to 16 inches, until all our guns on the left were silenced, our work much damaged, and our loss of men considerable. On the night of the 11th they began their second parallel, about 300 yards nearer to us. The troops being much weakened by sickness, as well as by the fire of the besiegers, and observing that the enemy had not only secured their flanks, but proceeded in every respect with the utmost regularity and caution, I could not venture so large sorties as to hope from them any considerable effect, but otherwise, I did everything in my power to interrupt this work by opening new embrasures for guns and keeping up a constant fire from all the howitzers and small mortars that we could man. On the evening of the 14th they assaulted and carried two redoubts that had been advanced about 300 yards for the purpose of delaying their approaches, and covering our left flank, and during the night included them in their second parallel, on which they continued to work with the utmost exertion. Being perfectly sensible that our works could not stand many hours after the opening of the batteries of that parallel, we not only continued a constant fire with all our mortars and every gun that could be brought to bear upon it, but a little before daybreak on the morning of the 16th, I ordered a sortie of about 350 men, under the direction of Lieut.-Colonel Abercrombie, to attack two batteries which appeared to be in the greatest forwardness, and to spike the guns. A detachment of Guards with the 80th company of Grenadiers, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Lake, attacked the one, and one of light infantry, under the command of Major Armstrong, attacked the other, and both succeeded in forcing the redoubts that covered them, spiking 11 guns, and killing or wounding about 100 of the French troops, who had the guard of that part of the trenches, and with little loss on our side. This action, though extremely honourable to the officers and soldiers who executed it, proved of little public advantage, for the cannon having been spiked in a hurry, were soon rendered fit for service again, and before dark the whole parallel and batteries appeared to be nearly complete. At this time we knew that there was no part of the whole front attacked on which we could show a single gun, and our shells were nearly expended. I, therefore, had only to choose between preparing to surrender next day, or endeavouring to get off with the greatest part of the troops, and I determined to attempt the latter. . . . In this situation, with my little force divided, the enemy's batteries opened at daybreak. The passage between this place and Gloucester was much exposed, but the boats having now returned, they were ordered to bring back the troops that had passed during the night, and they joined us in the forenoon without much loss. Our works, in the mean time, were going to ruin, and not having been able to strengthen them by an abattis, nor in any other manner but by a slight fraizing, which the enemy's artillery were demolishing wherever they fired, my opinion entirely coincided with that of the engineer and principal officers of the army, that they were in many places assailable in the forenoon, and that by the continuance of the same fire for a few hours longer, they would be in such a state as to render it desperate, with our numbers, to attempt to maintain them. We at that time could not fire a single gun ; only one 8-inch and little more than 100 Cohorn shells remained. A diversion by the French ships of war that lay at the mouth of York River was to be expected. Our numbers had been diminished by the enemy's fire, but particularly by sickness, and the strength and spirits of those in the works were much exhausted, by the fatigue of constant watching and unremitting duty. Under all these circumstances, I thought it would have been wanton and inhuman to the last degree to sacrifice the lives of this small body of gallant soldiers, who had ever behaved with so much fidelity and courage, by exposing them to an assault which, from the numbers and precautions of the enemy, could not fail to succeed. I therefore proposed to capitulate ; and I have the honour to enclose to your Excellency the copy of the correspondence between General Washington and me on that subject, and the terms of capitulation agreed upon. I sincerely lament that better could not be obtained, but I have neglected nothing in my power to alleviate the misfortune and distress of both officers and soldiers. The men are well clothed and provided with necessaries, and I trust will be regularly supplied by the means of the officers that are permitted to remain with them. The treatment, in general, that we have received from the enemy since our surrender has been perfectly good and proper, but the kindness and attention that has been shown to us by the French officers in particular — their delicate sensibility of our situation — their generous and pressing offer of money, both public and private, to any amount — has really gone beyond what I can possibly describe, and will, I hope, make an impression on the breast of every British officer, whenever the fortune of war should put any of them into our power.
Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis, Correspondence (edited by Charles Ross, London, 1859), I, Appendix, 510-512 passim.